Twelfth Night

Zane Alcorn Director	Jim Alexander Lighting Designer	Rayne Barrett* Assistant Stage Manager	Mikayla Burse Assistant Stage Manager
Germán Cárdenas Alaminos Scenic Designer	Cynthia Davis Props Supervisor	Hannah Levine Intimacy Director	Melissa A. Nathan* Stage Manager

Elizabeth Rocha Costume Designer	Ethan Shaw Fight Captain	Elana Sheinkopf Assistant Stage Manager	Adriaen Shi Wardrobe & Wig Supervisor
	Rew Tippin Sound Designer	Sally Wood Fight Director

*Appearing through an agreement between this theatre, Theater at Monmouth, and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

A.J. Baldwin* Olivia	Sandy Clancy Feste, Antonio	James Noel Hoban* Toby Belch
Kelly Letourneau* Malvolio, Captain, Priest	Anthony Michael Martinez* Orsino, Officer 2	Amber McNew* Viola
Lucas Prizant Andrew Aguecheek, Sebastian, Valentine	Jazmin Wilkins Maria, Officer 1	Ethan Shaw Understudy

*Appearing through an agreement between this theatre, Theater at Monmouth, and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?”

Should we forget ourselves (our values, our friends, and our family) for future happiness? This is the question posed in Robert Burn’s “Auld Lang Syne,” and is a central theme to Twelfth Night. From Viola’s transformation into Cesario to Malvolio wearing yellow stockings, the characters in this Shakespeare classic are constantly looking for the way out by hiding their true selves. In fact, almost every character betrays who they truly are at some point in the play with most of our core characters running counter to their personality or status, and their lives only become harder because of it. It’s a pretty brutal setup for what’s considered arguably one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies.

Given that the play’s namesake is a holiday that centers around boisterous revelry and inverted social norms, it is quite introspective for Twelfth Night to act as a catharsis which honors the hardships and absurdities of the last year, and celebrates our resilience with another year survived. For this production the use of a Christmas lens leading up to a Twelfth Night celebration allows us to dial in on the hardships surrounding the Nativity story as we know it, paralleled with the Viola’s journey: being humbly reborn through an act of divine intervention. Viola’s true nature can also only be revealed by the arrival of a character who spends the entire play traveling through Illyria since the “birth”.

In setting our version of Twelfth Night in the late 1960s we wanted to take the opportunity to hone in on some of the societal norms being challenged during that period through the counterculture movements, taking time to really understand the need for change around feminism and the perception of “sex, drugs, and, rock and roll”. Stylistically, the representation of fluidity within the hippie movement is an exciting lens with which to explore gender conflict throughout Twelfth Night as well as provide a believable basis that allows Viola to blend in. The grander anti-establishment focus on spiritual journeys also works hand-in-hand with the journeys of our lead characters, especially as they explore the stages of grief and its coping mechanisms. Throughout the play characters like Viola, Orsino, and Olivia channel their feelings by redefining themselves to an obsessive degree which I’m excited for you to watch unfold.

As you watch Twelfth Night, I hope you will reflect once again on the iconic lyrics of “Auld Lang Syne” as we hilariously explore what we are willing to leave behind for a better future.